


Red, White, Blue, and You

by bactaqueen



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky's got a thing for the Cap uniform, Happy Ending, M/M, most of this is set in TFA, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:44:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5363564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bactaqueen/pseuds/bactaqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky likes the Captain America costume.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red, White, Blue, and You

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Recognizable characters belong to their respective owners. No profit is earned and no infringement is intended.
> 
> Author's Note: This is a companion piece to [Obsession](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3226163).

_Stars and Stripes_ had a two-page spread on Captain America, America's New Hope. Bucky hoarded all the copies of the paper he could find, and tucked them with the letters and pictures from home into a waxed cotton bag Rebecca had sent him, stuffed into the bottom of his footlocker at camp or his rucksack when they marched. He wouldn't have explained it, not even to Jones or Dugan and they already knew he was a little queer, even if it was something he could talk about. It was too absurd.

It wasn't just the red, the white, the blue. It wasn't the inverted triangle of his shoulders and waist, or the curves of muscle in his arms, or the gloves. It wasn't the little wings on the cowl, though Bucky could admit even to himself he had a very specific fantasy about those and how they'd feel between his fingers. It wasn't even just the shorts--so short that without the tights they'd be indecent... or those tights--and Bucky had grown up in Brooklyn, he wasn't blind. It was all of it and more. It was the familiar blue of his eyes, the angle of that jaw, the curve of that mouth. The mask couldn't hide it all. Bucky would know that face anywhere.

But that body. That body was new.

Long past when most GIs had hit the sack, when the only fellas moving around were the ones on night watch, Bucky slipped out of the long tent and picked his way across the muddy camp. Half the battalion had left already; the rest of them were set to march out in the morning. It was his last chance to steal any time for himself. So he had his towel, and his soap, and one precious copy of _Stars and Stripes_ on its last legs, and near the center of camp was the shower facility.

Bucky went in and all the way to the back, all the way to the side. He'd hear anyone coming and could get rid of the newspaper if he had to. Not that anyone liked to say anything when they saw things they shouldn't in the showers.

Bucky turned on the warm drippy spray, and he soaped up, and he stared at the grainy picture of Captain America, fist on his hip, shield on his arm, staring back at him. And he thought about Steve, and he imagined that he was right, that some miracle had finally given Steve the body he'd always deserved, that fate had dressed him up, that Captain America's hands were as strong as they looked, his thighs as solid, and that the wooden wall wasn't nearly as rough as it looked against his back.

 

***

 

They didn't even ask him anything.

Bucky Barnes was not a traitor. He repeated his name, his rank, his service number, sometimes to himself, sometimes just to know he was still real, still himself. But they never asked him for anything else. They never asked him for anything.

They got all the feedback they needed in his screams and tears.

Sometimes, when the pain ebbed long enough while he was alone, before the fear seized him again, he thought about his parents and his sisters. He hoped the Army told them it happened fast. He hoped they thought he'd died on the battlefield. Sometimes he thought about Connie. She was a sweet girl. He hoped it didn't bother her too much when his letters stopped coming.

But most of the time, when he could think, he thought about Steve. He hoped Steve never knew any of this. Not that he'd been captured, not where he was, not what happened, not the scope of what the Germans were doing beyond just this. Steve would swim across the Atlantic and burn all of Germany to the ground if he knew--Bucky didn't think his lungs could take the smoke.

Sometimes, when the pain came back, when the fear rose like bile in his throat and made his head buzz, when he was asleep or not-quite-asleep, he thought about Captain America wearing Steve's face.

He thought about Cap bursting in to rescue him, slamming open doors and tearing the straps off the table with his bare hands.

He thought about Cap saying, "It's me, it's Steve."

Bucky thought he must be close to the end. He smiled, because if this was the last thing he got before-- "Steve." He just wished his last fantasy had taken place somewhere better.

Ebbets Field, maybe. Maybe Steve's bright, cramped little apartment, where they always had the privacy they needed.

But it didn't matter. He was just happy to see him--to see both of them, even if Steve was too tall and Captain America was wearing the wrong uniform.

Cap pulled him off the table like he weighed nothing. Steve put a hand on the back of his head and looked so sad, so worried, so relieved. He said, "I thought you were dead."

Bucky thought he already was. "I thought you were smaller," he said to Steve, and wanted to tell Cap that he could have at least worn the right uniform but he couldn't see him anymore.

Steve put a big arm around him and led him to the door. The air seemed to shake; Bucky knew the sound and feel of distant explosions by now. He stumbled, trying to remember how feet worked and what walking was, and his stomach lurched and the world tipped, settled, sharpened.

"What happened to you?"

"I joined the Army."

It was a dream. It had to be.

But he always had the most fun in his dreams when he pretended they were real, so he did. Steve was here, he was Captain America, and the Army was somehow responsible for all of it. He asked the ridiculous questions as soon as they crossed his mind.

Steve had plenty of ridiculous answers.

It wasn't until two days later, when they were almost back to base and his head had cleared and he'd made some alarming discoveries about how he healed now, about his stamina, that he finally accepted that he wasn't dreaming. He wasn't hallucinating. He wasn't moments from death. He caught a peek of the tights under Steve's pants and when Steve took the leather jacket off to give to him for a while, he saw the blue, the star, the red and white stripes.

It was good to know, at least, that whatever Zola had done hadn't fucked up his Johnson.

 

***

 

He wasn't drunk. He wished he was, because then maybe everything would make more sense, but it didn't seem to matter how much he drank or what it was, he couldn't even get a good tingly buzz going.

He didn't want to think about everything that had happened to him, or how similar it was to what Steve had described happened to him. Steve had made his choices. He'd wanted it. Bucky had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, never wanted any of it and now...

Now he couldn't get drunk, no matter how many tumblers of straight top-shelf whiskey he'd downed, and he was starting to worry.

He didn't want to worry.

He wanted something else.

There was a tour poster plastered to the wall over the bar. Bucky settled in near it and ordered another whiskey, and he tried not to stare but he definitely kept sight of it in the corner of his eye while he waited for Steve. He'd already talked to the guys. They were all in. But they were going to give Steve a hard time and he deserved it. Walking around like he did, telling people he was Captain America.

What an idiot.

They were all idiots.

After laughter and another round of beers, Steve joined him at the bar in the back room. He cut such a fine figure in the olive drab officer's uniform, Bucky was acutely aware of his own sloppy dress. And he couldn't help thinking how much he'd like to bite open those shiny buttons of his jacket.

"What about you?" Steve wanted to know. "Are you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?"

Bucky would follow Captain America anywhere, especially in those blue shorts. He smirked into his drink. He'd follow Steve first, though, anywhere, and he wanted Steve to know that. It seemed important.

The doctors said he should go home. Phillips tried to bully him into it. Bucky suspected he probably should go home, at least for some R&R, but he couldn't leave Steve to fight HYDRA alone, not after everything he'd heard in Zola's lab.

And in any case, seeing Cap in the movies would be nothing compared to following him into firefights every night.

He leaned toward Steve. "But you're keeping the outfit, right?" He couldn't help asking. He had to know.

Had to make this preference known.

Steve sighed and his lips quirked. He glanced at the tour poster and said, "It's growing on me."

Bucky laughed. Maybe, if he was lucky, Steve would at least keep one of them.

He didn't even hope for more than that.

 

***

 

Bucky slung the rifle over his shoulder and ducked into Steve's tent. "Come on, Cap, everyone's waiting on--"

Steve was adjusting the strap across his chest. Bucky's mouth went dry and his pants felt tight. Steve looked up, a little harried, a little rushed, a little breathless.

"Too many fucking straps," he grunted. "I'm coming, Buck."

 _I wish you would._ Bucky had to shake his head to clear it. His mouth was still dry when he asked, "Is that the new uniform?"

Steve looked vaguely embarrassed. "You said you liked it," he said. He sounded defensive, and there was a flash of fear in his eyes, like maybe he was wondering if it was a bad idea.

Bucky shifted his weight and did not give in to the impulse to press the heel of his palm to his groin. He didn't need to draw attention to his situation. "You're going to get shot," he said, definitively, and figured as long as it was just a graze it would probably be worth it. "But you're bulletproof, right? Come on. The guys are waiting." He turned away. "We've got to get moving if we're gonna make it anywhere before dark."

Steve scooped his new helmet off his cot. The wings weren't real anymore, they were just stylized stencils. Bucky had matching ones embroidered on the shoulders of his coat; everyone had them somewhere on their gear since they weren't exactly a uniform kind of unit. Bucky missed the way the wings on Cap's stage costume stuck out.

Steve muttered, "I'll get rid of it when we get back."

Bucky shoved open the tent flap and held it up for Steve. He met his eyes. "Don't you dare."

 

***

 

His memory wasn't what it used to be, but he would know that uniform anywhere.

He had his orders. He was always good at following orders.

They'd made it sound so right, Pierce and the handlers, but Steve wasn't on his side.

Steve was never on the wrong side.

So if Steve wasn't on his side, then Bucky was on the wrong side.

Bucky watched Steve fall.

He just... fell. He didn't grab for anything to hold on to. He didn't try to dive, try to control where he landed. He didn't fight to the surface.

Steve had never given up on anything in his life. Bucky knew that.

Bucky let go of the girder. The sense of falling was shockingly, viscerally familiar and he panicked the instant before he hit the water. He fought it, wrenching his dislocated arm, before he remembered what he was doing. Why he'd jumped.

He hauled Captain America out of the Potomac and waited until he started breathing again before he left him there on the muddy bank. He could hear the man with the wings crashing through the brush, shouting for Steve. Bucky trudged into the trees and thought, _I'm coming back. I just need some time._

Time he hadn't taken the first time Steve had saved him from Zola.

There were resources. Safehouses all over the city. He worried at first that they weren't actually safe until he realized that so much of HYDRA was gone and things--like him, like the safehouses and emergency supplies and identities--had slipped through the cracks. It was good. It gave him that time he needed.

For a while, he stuck around DC. He even went to the Smithsonian. The uniform was all wrong, he realized. Steve never wore that one. It had to be a replica. But it was a good one, and the effect was the same for the people crowding in to get a good close look.

He was disappointed that there was no display of the original costume. He would have liked to see it.

Holed up in the safehouses, he watched video of the battle of New York and read through the files dumped anonymously onto the Internet and watched hundreds of hours of video footage of interviews and press conference and appearances. He even found the places where fans went to talk about Captain America, where they discussed every last detail about him.

It was nice to see that he wasn't the only one with those feelings about the suit.

What Bucky didn't like was the all-blue suit with the silver details. He understood why Steve wore it, but he didn't like it.

Eventually, he went back to Steve. They talked. He got some decent medical care. He got debriefed.

It was bad learning everything all over again.

It was worse, the most nerve-wracking thing he'd ever done, when he screwed up the courage to say to Steve, "I want." They'd never before put it into words. "But I'm not ready." He just wasn't there yet, no matter how badly he wanted to be.

They'd gotten a second chance. A better chance. He didn't want to waste it.

But he just couldn't rush it.

Steve smiled and hugged him tight and just said, "Take your time, Buck."

But he sure did stare at his thighs a lot.

Bucky liked it.

 

***

 

Bucky came out of the bathroom, mostly dry, with one towel hitched around his hips and another over his head. He scrubbed at his hair and thought about Netflix, about how Steve would be gone all evening and about how he could have dinner delivered and do nothing. Be nothing for a while. He wouldn't even have to put on pants if he didn't want to.

He tugged the towel off his head and froze.

Steve sure could be quiet when he wanted to be.

Bucky's mouth was dry.

Steve was wearing the uniform. The oldest one. The original one, with the boots and the tights and the short shorts (booty shorts, Sam called them, and Bucky liked that), the cowl with the little wings and the gloves and even the heater shield.

His voice sounded raw when he said, "You can't wear that to the children's hospital." Steve had put on real muscle since his days of prancing across theater stages and sound stages; the shorts were so tight they were indecent.

He'd put some poor kid's eye out if he wasn't careful.

"I'm not going. Sam volunteered to take my place. Nat's going with him."

Bucky's breath stuck in his throat. "Then why are you wearing it?"

Steve spread his feet and flashed his best Cap smile. He raised a hand, finger pointed just like in the old propaganda posters, and in his best performer's voice, he said, "I want you to buy war bonds."

Bucky's fingers clenched in the towel at his waist and his dick twitched. "Steve." But he couldn't unstick the rest of the words from his throat. _Don't tease me like this. Don't do this to me._

Steve's smile softened. Cap disappeared--just Steve was left, sweet and knowing and earnest. He dropped his hand and looked down at himself, flexed his fingers around the strap inside the shield. He looked back up at Bucky.

"I just thought, you know, after..." He trailed off, gaze falling to the length of Bucky's thigh showing in the slit where the ends of the towel didn't quite come together. He looked back up. "We don't have to talk about it, Buck. Don't mean we can't... you know."

Yeah. Bucky knew. He knew, all right. He swallowed the lump in his throat and let go of the towels.

"Lose the shield," he said, crossing to Steve.

Steve shook it off his arm and let it clatter to the floor. Then Bucky was on him, shoving him back onto their big bed and climbing on top of him. Bucky pinned him, his thighs tight around Steve's waist, and he leaned over until their faces were close.

And he grabbed one of the little wings sticking up off the cowl and tweaked it. "I've got plans for these."

Steve's whole face lit up. His hands stroked up and down Bucky's thighs. "Whatever you want. Anything."

Bucky leaned in for a kiss.


End file.
